I have a HP Laserjet 5 with a serious printing problem

[ptukey]

I really need some help. I work for a company in which, in my department, we print invoices and send those invoices via the postal mail to our customers. Well I have run into a problem, I have an HP Laserjet 5 and an HP Laserjet 8100 that is on our network.
Now the HP Laserjet 5 is having some serious printing problems. When I print to the Laserjet 5 for some reason the section in which the name, and address go...gets spread out. Basically the gaps between;
The Name
The Address
The City, State, and Zip
is 1 and 1/2 times the gap size on the 8100 series Laserjet. Now the problem is that I am only allowed to print to the Laserjet 5 and since the Gap is 1 and 1/2 the size of the 8100, the Post Office is returning our mail. Because they can't see the whole address. Which in turn makes it hard to send our customers an invoice, even though I bet our customers are happy. =)
I have Installed the lastest drivers for the Laserjet 5, but that didn't work. I had one of our SysAdmin look at the form but we came to the conclusion that it wasn't the form since it is printing out differently, depending on the printer that we use.
I have tried to look at the printer settings, and being A+ certified and having an AA in computer networking, I thought I could figure this problem out but I have tried everything I know and I can't figure it out.
I think it has something to do with the printer, because its not just my machine, its affects everyone that prints to the Laserjet 5.
Can you please offer some suggestions. Thanks

 

[edfair]

What happens when you print a page of text?
It is possible that the line spacing got set to other than standard, but it is also possible that there are line positioning codes coming out of your invoicing program.
And how many lines per inch when it prints? Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[ptukey]

When I print a page of text, which is what the invoices is in as well, the line spacing is also off. Compared to the 8100 that is in the office.

 

[ptukey]

what do you mean by "how many lines per inch when it prints?"
I am also trying to find out what program we use to create the actual invoice. Because we use like SQL or something like that to write a page of code that looks at the information on the account and prints out an invoice accordingly.

 

[edfair]

Printers generally have a place where you can set the parameters for printing:
margins, font type, font size and so on. One of the parameters is line spacing. Standards are 6 and 8. And so if you were to print at 8 and it got set to 6 it would take about 1 1/2 as much space per line.
HP also can download the commands to change the spacing, and that spacing will hold as long as power stays on. And I suppose that that model could hold it even after power was removed. And using the downloadable sizing you can vary it in almost infinite steps.
Print a page of text to each printer. See how many lines print on a full page. Should be 60 lines with 1/2 margins if it is set to 6 LPI. And if they print different numbers of lines you have identified the problem area. Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[ptukey]

Cool, I think we have someone working on it but it will he some time before we do. Thanks for advice and the suggestions I really appreciate it.

 

[ptukey]

Well it still is having problems..I have checked and rechecked all of the prefences both on the computers and on the printer and they are all correct. Do you have any other suggestions on things to try?

 

[edfair]

Have you counted the number of lines on a page? Without knowing how many lines it is printing, telling you to change parameters may be making things worse.
You might also check to see if the print sizes are the same. Smaller print sizes can be an indication to the printer to make everything smaller.
You can also do a test print from most HPs. How about trying a test print page and report what is there. Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[JoeMiller]

One thing you can try is to cold reset the printer to clear all settings the printer has back to HP's default. WARNING: This will erase any settings in the printer, including network card settings so you will need to have your network admin reconfigure these after the cold reset. Before performing the reset, print a configuration page by taking the printer offline, going to the test menu and selecting configuration page. Then you'll have all the settings on one sheet to give to the network admin for reconfiguration.

Cold reset procedure: Turn the printer off. Press and hold the GO button with the printer off and then turn the printer back on while still holding the GO button. Hold the button for a few seconds while the printer turns back on and you can let go when you see "Cold Reset" on the display screen.

HTH Joe Miller
joe.miller@flotech.net

 

[polymath5]

A trick HP told me when I had to cold reset my HP 4500dn was to remove the jetdirect card before doing the cold reset procedure.

This way I didn't have to redo the settings on the card.

FWIW. =============
Mens et Manus
=============

 

[JoeMiller]

While pulling the JetDirect card before doing the cold reset does indeed keep the settings intact on newer models. The JetDirect card may be the problem in this case and it would be better to start off from scratch and reconfigure it as well as the printer. That is why I didn't mention it in my post, but thanks for the heads up polymath5.



Joe Miller
joe.miller@flotech.net